


The Juniper Crown

by thelightofmorning



Series: Tales of the Aurelii [4]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Politics, Cannibalism, Child Abandonment, Child Death, Child Neglect, Class Issues, Corpse Desecration, Crimes & Criminals, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantastic Racism, Gen, Genocide, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Misogyny, Mutilation, Prequel, Religious Conflict, Violence, War Crimes, read the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-25 01:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelightofmorning/pseuds/thelightofmorning
Summary: The Empire has been invaded and their Legions withdrawn from the Reach. For the first time in centuries, the Reachfolk have a hope of regaining their homeland.Madanach of Lost Valley must walk the path of kingship and unite the clans before he can make a strike at the Mournful Throne. By his side is his cousin Catriona, a newly minted Hagraven and Matriarch. Together, they are surely unstoppable.Catriona is certain she can handle anything with the blessing of Hircine.But the will of Talos and His worshippers is indomitable - and one of them is far closer to home than even a Matriarch can realise.





	1. The Legend of Red Eagle

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, fantastic racism, war crimes, imprisonment, misogyny, alcohol use, classism, criminal acts, religious conflict, corpse desecration, emotional trauma, mutilation, child neglect, child abuse, genocide, rape/non-con, torture, cannibalism, child abandonment and child death. This will be dealing strongly with the themes of genocide, indigenous dispossession and intergenerational trauma as it is Catriona’s story from the retaking of the Reach to the Markarth Incident.

“How are you coping?”

Catriona turned to face her cousin Madanach, claws clicking against the stone of Lost Valley’s stairs. Her new body felt awkward, though Hircine assured her that she would adjust, His gift to her. The aches and pains of old age had been removed and while she wouldn’t be lauded as one of the most beautiful women of the Reach anymore, she had the power to do more than even the greatest magics previously known to her. Vengeance for her sons. Vengeance for her own mistreatment. Vengeance for her daughter. Dengeir would pay, yes, he would. He would never see Sovngarde.

“I’m adapting,” she assured the young chief.

“Good.” Madanach knuckled his moustache thoughtfully. He’d come to Lost Valley’s chieftainship after two years in High Rock, posing as a mercenary to learn the arts of lowlander warfare and battle-magic. “Have you heard the news from Cyrodiil?”

“No.” Catriona gestured with a taloned hand to her form. “I was a little busy ascending to Matriarch.”

Madanach grinned. “The Aldmeri Dominion has invaded Hammerfell and Cyrodiil. The Legion’s already withdrawing from Markarth and Fort Sungard.”

Catriona inhaled sharply. “You mean it’s…?”

“It’s our best chance since the days of Talos,” Madanach confirmed. “I’m going to need about a year to consolidate my reign as High King over the Eastern Reach. Then we can march on Hrolfdir in Markarth.”

“You need to follow the Path of Red Eagle,” Catriona said slowly. “Only don’t become a Briarheart.”

“I like to think I have a few more brains than the Red Eagle,” Madanach agreed with a rueful smile.

“You’ll need more than a few brains to achieve this,” Catriona said as she turned to the altar. “But for what it’s worth, you have my support. The lowlanders owe me a long debt of blood and pain.”

“They will pay it,” he promised softly. “They will pay it.”

…

“Who are you to come into my camp?”

Torach of Red Eagle Redoubt was chieftain of a small camp whose only claim to fame was sitting at the beginning of the Path of Red Eagle. He was fat and slovenly, living off the gifts of pilgrims instead of getting off his arse and working for the good of his people. He didn’t even have a shaman in his household, which boded ill for the spiritual wellbeing of his camp.

“I am Madanach son of Feredach of Lost Valley,” the would-be High King said formally, throwing down the traditional challenge token of an antler tied with hawk feathers and juniper berries. “By the power of Kyne Beast-Mother and Hircine Hunt-Lord, I challenge you for command of your redoubt.”

Once challenged, a chief _had_ to respond or be removed from his throne. Once defeated, Madanach could choose whether to spare Torach as a sub-chief or remove him to be replaced by a more competent one. Judging by Torach’s goggling eyes, it would need to be the latter.

“You don’t have the authority!” spat Torach at last, struggling to his feet.

“You are fat from the fruits of the pilgrim’s path yet your people are thin and gaunt,” Madanach responded serenely. “You would be more fit to be a lowlander Jarl, swollen to bursting with the labour of your people and yet demanding more though their bellies cry out with hunger.”

“From my observation, lowlander Jarls are cleaner,” Catriona remarked from her place at his side.

Torach spat in the Hagraven’s direction. “You’re nothing but a filthy Nord who lay down with a Nord and whose only daughter is a Nord who worships the Thief-God and is married to a Blade! We should purge all Nords from the Reach!”

Madanach could appreciate the desire to rid the Reach of all Nords, but Torach had gone too far in touching on the traumas of Catriona’s life. His father Feredach had tried to make peace with Falkreath Hold so that they could access the holy places of Hircine and Nocturnal. No one expected Dengeir to be scum even by lowlander standards, sending his only daughter to the Shieldmaidens of the Thief-God despite Catriona begging him not to. The Jarls of Falkreath had ever done so, he said, and no heathen Forsworn would change that.

“Do you want to handle him or shall I?” he asked under his breath.

“It’ll look better if you do,” she said softly.

“You aren’t fit to wipe the feet of the least member of Lost Valley Clan, let alone one of its holy Matriarchs,” Madanach said mildly. “How many more times must I insult you, Torach, before you find the spine to attack me?”

Torach looked around at his household, all of whom had expressions of mingled apprehension and contempt. “I’ll drink my wine from your skull-!”

He grabbed his heirloom steel axe, taken by his grandfather from a Companion of Jorrvaskr, and lunged at Madanach with a howl. Almost absently, the chief stepped aside and brought his blessed stone axe down on the back of Torach’s neck. Stunned, the soon-to-be former chief was unable to stop Madanach from flipping him over and drawing a precious steel knife.

A quick cut across the throat solved the problem of Torach but when it came to remove his heart, Madanach threw it to the dogs instead of consuming it to absorb his former rival’s chief. Laziness and greed could be contagious, after all. Even the hounds nosed at it and slunk away, whining in disgust.

An hour later, Torach’s niece Gallachia was installed as the new sub-chief, eager to jump on board once she realised Madanach’s ultimate plan. Smart girl, that one.

By sunset, he was marching up to Red Eagle Ascent with Catriona and Gallachia. The shamans of the camp came forward with the Briarheart who reigned here on behalf of Kaleen of Karthspire. “What’s going on?” demanded Duach.

“I’m walking the Path of Red Eagle,” Madanach told him. “Torach disagreed and said some charming things about my cousin, so Gallachia is now chief of Red Eagle Redoubt.”

Duach smiled thinly. “You have that right, Madanach son of Feredach, but first you must duel me. To first blood. May the better man win.”

Armed with Torach’s steel axe, Madanach stood a better chance against the relentless Duach, who dual-wielded elven axes with the blinding speed of over a century of practice. It took all of Madanach’s agility and a few useful Flesh spells to avoid being wounded by them. But when Duach tore the steel axe from his hands and punched him to the ground, he felt a moment’s despair.

The Briarheart was leaning over him. “Are you alright?”

Madanach kicked him in the teeth. Perhaps it wasn’t honourable but he needed to do this.

Duach spat blood to the side and laughed. “Test yourself against Red Eagle Himself!”

Now accompanied by Duach, they ascended to Rebel’s Cairn, where Red Eagle was entombed. There, Catriona pulled Red Eagle’s Fury from its niche in the wall and sheathed it in the special stone slot.

“Try not to die,” she advised as the door to the tomb slid open. “I need your help to kill Dengeir.”

Madanach laughed.

Gallachia and Duach engaged the skeletal archers as Madanach made his way to Red Eagle’s risen corpse. The ancient Briarheart wielded a draugr-greatsword enchanted with fire, some ancient treasure from his glory days, and he moved even faster than Duach.

“I am Madanach son of Feredach!” Madanach announced as he drew Torach’s steel axe and called fire to his hand. “I will become High King of our people!”

Faolan laughed darkly. “To what purpose? The lowlands Empire rules forever.”

“They’ve actually been invaded by some merish kingdom to the south.” Madanach raised his axe. “Their soldiers are leaving. We have a chance.”

“Too many have believed that and died.” Red Eagle leered as corpses do. “But come them, kinglet, and prove yourself.”

It was a hard battle. Madanach nearly died. But after he brought Faolan to his knees, the Red Eagle laughed darkly once more.

“Take my Bane,” he said. “You will fail as I did… but you will have your chance.”

It was Catriona who presented him with the sword after healing him. “Your path has only just begun,” she warned.

“But it is begun.” Madanach lifted Red Eagle’s Bane. “For the Reach!”

The warriors of Red Eagle Redoubt, Red Eagle Ascent and Rebel’s Cairn roared back in acknowledgement.

The path of Madanach had begun and would end in the Mournful Throne.


	2. The High Priestess of Hircine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, fantastic racism, and mentions of corpse desecration, mutilation and human sacrifice. Like the other prequels, this story will be episodic and interrelated to the others. Callaina comes by her gift for Alteration from Catriona.

Uniting the hill-clans was easier said than done.

Catriona peered through the mists of Deepwood Vale to the stone buildings of Hag’s End, the great training centre of the Reach’s witches, shamans and Matriarchs. They’d come through the Redoubt, subduing and occasionally executing the guards, and now they were in the Vale. Tarania refused to recognise Madanach’s authority as the Bearer of Red Eagle’s Bane? Then it was high time a new High Priestess stood among the Matriarchs.

“Do you think we’ll succeed?” Kaleen, the newly raised Matriarch of Karthspire, asked nervously.

“If we don’t, Madanach will lose and we’ll spend another six centuries under the rule of the Empire,” Catriona answered with more certainty than she felt. “Is that a fate you wish for our people?”

“Of course not! But Tarania’s been High Priestess of Hircine since the Oblivion Crisis. You’ve been a Matriarch for what… ten years?” Kaleen dry-washed her taloned hands. She’d been a Hag for five years before her ascension and wasn’t even forty years of age.

“Before that, I was a Hag for twenty,” Catriona reassured her. “Remember, because of the Reacher blood and magic, we live longer when we are allowed to than the lowlanders. I taught Conjuration at the College of Winterhold forty years ago until Feredach had me marry Dengeir just over three decades ago. I mightn’t be as old as Tarania, but I’ve travelled more extensively than her. It will be well or we will be dead.”

A scout from the Deepwood camp approached them. “Matriarchs, be welcome to the Vale,” the young man said formally. “Might I ask your business here?”

“Tell Tarania to get off her arse and meet me at the Bloodthorn Altar,” Catriona replied. “She needs to explain herself as to why she hasn’t acknowledged Madanach’s claim to the High King’s throne.”

The boy bit his lip. “Do I have to? They’re looking for Briarhearts and I’m not ready to be one.”

Catriona rested a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. Why did Tarania require so many Briarhearts? “I’ll go up there and claim Bloodthorn, lad. Tell the clansfolk to stay out of the way.”

She transformed into a raven and soared across the Vale, Kaleen in tow. Madanach needed the power of the Matriarchs behind him. The priests of the Left-Hand Gods were recognising him but they needed at least one of the Right-Hand Gods on his side to crown him with juniper in the old way. Catriona would become that priestess or die trying.

They arrived at the Bloodthorn Altar before its curved wall of Dragonish carving just as the door opened to reveal Tarania in all her feathered glory. Catriona assumed her true shape and bared her teeth in a smile. “High Priestess,” she croaked.

“Spare me the pretty words,” Tarania said as she called fire to her clawed hand. “You want my position because Madanach will get most of us killed. I’m trying to protect our people, Catriona, not let them be killed.”

“You have Seen then?” Catriona asked, calling ice to hers.

“I need no Sight to know this will end in failure.” Tarania sighed. “But you are a Nord and Madanach is half-Nord. You can only learn through violence.”

They entered a circle that had been tramped out in the snow by one of the Briarhearts loyal to a lesser Matriarch of this place. Tarania gestured and fire surrounded them, burning on the snow and stone alike.

“Hircine, Hunt-Lord, I beg of you to grant me the power to educate my ignorant sister!” Tarania cried out, calling to the heavens. “I call upon fire! I call upon ice! I call upon the thunder!”

With each word the elements swirled around her in a cloak. It was quite impressive, preventing Catriona from closing in and using her claws in a fight. Most Matriarchs relied on their natural gifts, after all.

“Hircine, Prince of the Hunt, I offer my blood to you with this blade.” Catriona drew the dagger she’d taken from the Matriarch of Orphan Rock Clan on her marriage to Dengeir thirty years ago. “Kyne, Storm-Goddess, I offer my breath to you with this prayer. Nettlebane I do wield, sister-blade to Bloodthorn.”

The very air circled around Catriona in a funnel that promised buffeting force to anyone who attempted to harm her without magic. A useful spell she’d learned at the College from Tolfdir. She wondered if he was still alive; he was easily Tarania’s age by now.

“Kyne hears not the prayers of the Hagravens,” Tarania sneered as she gathered fire in her hand once more.

“Kyne hears the prayers of us all,” Catriona said quietly as golden light gathered in her palm.

They struck in unison. Catriona had less resistance to magic than a Breton-bred Reacher, but she’d spent most of her life honing her innate understanding of magicka while Tarania sat at Hag’s End and followed the same old rituals. That understanding dampened the worst of the fire spell and allowed her to absorb most of the rest of it. The weak spell she’d cast in Hircine’s name allowed her to carefully leech her own lifeforce for more magicka power.

Both of them were thrown back and Catriona was the first to rise. She cast Ash Rune, a spell learned on Solstheim, and encased Tarania in hardened ash as she stepped on it. As the Matriarch struggled to free herself, Telekinesis lifted a handful of pebbles that Catriona flung at Tarania’s exposed face.

It didn’t go all her way. By the end of the bout, Catriona had a broken arm, several burns and a bleeding nose from the use of her lifeforce. As Tarania summoned one last firebolt to finish her off, the younger Matriarch flung Nettlebane underhand, catching her in the stomach.

It wasn’t against the law to use whatever weapon came to hand in a Matriarch’s duel after all.

“Will you acknowledge Madanach’s right to the Juniper Crown?” Catriona rasped as she limped over to Tarania.

“You will doom us all,” gasped the High Priestess. “Madanach will fail and the Thu’um shall break the gates of the Mournful City. You yourself will fail at the test. Kill me now so I may not see it.”

“I will not fail,” Catriona vowed as she pulled Nettlebane from Tarania’s gut and thrust it through her throat.


	3. The Mournful Throne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, fantastic racism, torture, mutilation, human sacrifice, corpse desecration and child death. Doing the third chapter so quickly as to bring it into line with Heresy, as the fourth and fifth chapters will deal with the Markarth Incident from the Forsworn’s end. Playing around with the timeline – Madanach is in power for about five years or so – as even canon is a bit confused on that point.

In the end, Madanach only had to execute about a fifth of the chiefs in the Reach to bring the rest into line. Scouts had confirmed the absence of the Legions and at the advising of Catriona, who knew well the lowlanders’ calendar and the yearly rituals of the Jarls, he waited until the autumn Moot in Solitude where Hrolfdir, his son and his Silver-Blood cronies went before taking Markarth.

One night, frost casting a halo around the silver moon and the red one in crescent, Reachfolk agents within the city slipped out of the Warrens, poisoned the guards’ mead, and opened the great copper gates to Madanach’s warriors. Silently they entered, multiple streams of vengeance, and rounded up every name on the list of overlords provided to them by Bothela, the only Hag to dwell in this city, and her son Gillam.

Dawn saw a row of heads before the Understone Keep, mostly Nord and Cyrod with the odd Breton lickspittle and Reach collaborator. The guards were finished off, piled into a wagon and burned with basic funeral rites delivered by a shaky Priest of Arkay. The Reachfolk recognised the Aedra and Daedra as the lowlanders called the gods and Madanach reassured the clergy of Arkay and Dibella that they could continue their rites in peace.

The Priests of Talos, however, were taken off in chains by Catriona and… Madanach knew the new High Priestess of Hircine held a very deep, very personal and very justified grudge against the Thief-God but he didn’t think she’d do _that_ to a bunch of people. Even death held no peace for she’d soul trapped them all to deny them Sovngarde.

If he hadn’t been planning similar deeds upon Jarl Hrolfdir, his brother Raerek and the boy Igmund if necessary, Madanach might have been moderately appalled.

He now sat gingerly on the Mournful Throne, flanked by the High Priests of Namira and Nocturnal for the Left-Hand Gods and Catriona for the Right-Hand Gods. There was no one to stand for Kyne because most of the Matriarchs had turned to Hircine and His more immediate rewards for devotion. That troubled Madanach in a way he couldn’t articulate if he tried. All that lived were the children of Kyne and to not have Her blessing…

But the old rites were performed: Eldred Silver-Blood, the only one who hadn’t escaped Markarth or been called to fight in the Cyrods’ war, was stretched out on a rack and his heart cut from his chest, his skin from his flesh, and his flesh from his bone after he’d been cleanly decapitated. Madanach was anointed in blood from man and beast, took seizin from the chieftains loyal to him and the replacements of those who’d been disloyal, and was crowned with a wreath of juniper leaves and berries to the great acclamation of the Reachfolk.

The local grandees who weren’t of the Reach, mostly prosperous Redguards, a few transplanted Bretons from west of the Druadachs and the odd Cyrod, were a little unenthusiastic in their cheering. Madanach could accept that. Reacher rites were… confronting to a softer people.

About a week after his coronation, Madanach came to learn that ruling a nation was vastly different to reclaiming it. Most of his advisers knew nothing more than the hunting, farming and subsistence lifestyle of the Reach camps or the grinding poverty of working at the smelters for a pittance. Catriona, for all she’d been a Jarl’s wife, knew little of daily bureaucracy and was more concerned with returning the old gods to the Reach. Nepos the Nose was shrewd and knew something of such things as a clerk, but he’d never operated on a national level before.

It was Gillam mac Bothela, married to a lowlander Nord of all people, who stepped into the position of Prime Minister. Compact and auburn-haired with the kind of lilting brogue that charmed a person into complacency, he was deft with politics and coin. His wife Eodwyn hailed from the Rift clear on the other side of Skyrim and showed a shrewd wit in the handling of tensions with the non-Reacher Nords. Rumour painted them as worshippers of Nocturnal, possibly even Thieves. They weren’t bigger thieves than the Silver-Bloods, at least.

Madanach worked for about a year to consolidate his power and the myriad cultures in the Reach into a passable government. Word came from the south that the Cyrods had remarkably won against the Aldmeri Dominion but were forced to sign a treaty ceding half of southern Hammerfell and forbidding the worship of Talos. The elves did the world a favour. Maybe lowlanders would find a better role model.

_Three years,_ he mused as he stood on the balcony of the court wizard’s tower to study the city below. _Two years to consolidate my power and another to learn how this city works. We might just make it._

“The Empire lost half its Legions and Cyrodiil three-fifths of its people,” Gillam reported soberly that afternoon in their council meeting. “Skyrim’s lost half of its fighting men. The fighting hasn’t ceased in Hammerfell – in fact, there’s a growing independence movement among the Forebears led by one Beroc al-Dragonstar. High Rock was relatively untouched.”

“Beroc’s uncle to the current High King,” explained Nepos. “I’ve dealt with the man. He’s sharp.”

Madanach rubbed his chin. “Send word to the Redguards. We’ll recognise them as a free nation if they do the same for us.”

“Beroc’s practical enough to do that,” Gillam agreed.

“Orsinium will recognise you,” assured Tarlak gro-Mashog, a noble of the small Orcish kingdom.

“Good to know.” Madanach slumped back in his seat. “We’ll have trouble with the Cyrods and the Nords though.”

“Mede’s desperate for coin. If we acknowledge ourselves as a province of the Empire – I do believe there’s several Imperial statutes that would permit your, ah, traditional religious rites – and send him a hefty bribe, he would be a fool to refuse us recognition,” supplied Gracchus, the only Cyrod on the council. “The Aldmeri Dominion will back you for your hatred of Talos alone. I hear First Emissary Elenwen was impressed by what Catriona did to the clergy.”

“Is there enough of the Legions left to get the Nords to back down?” Madanach asked him bluntly.

Gracchus spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know. But the Dominion will do us the favour of purging the Talosite fanatics.”

“Enemy of my enemy, eh?” Madanach allowed himself a smile as he sat back in his seat.

“Something like that.”

It was another year before Hrolfdir had the spine to parley with him. Madanach _wasn’t_ unreasonable, so he met him at the border of Rorikstead, a few guards for each of them. Let the man go into obscurity with a bit of compensation.

The meeting turned out otherwise. While Madanach and Catriona were meeting with Hrolfdir, mercenaries under the Silver-Bloods’ command stormed Serpent’s Bluff Redoubt up on the hill and slaughtered all therein. When one of the scouts reported what was going on, Madanach snapped.

Now he sat on the Mournful Throne once more, crowned with juniper, and watched the High Priest of Namira sacrifice Hrolfdir appropriately. Thanks to Catriona, he would never see Sovngarde or rebirth. Thanks to the Left-Hand Gods, he died screaming.

Every Nord who hadn’t shown their support was given a choice – be escorted to the borders or die in likewise manner, their lands given to Reachfolk. A very few chose the course of prudence. The rest chose to die for Talos. Children were sent to the lowlands. Madanach didn’t kill children. He wasn’t a Nord.

Gillam was expressionless as the heads of every supporter of the Silver-Bloods was lined up in front of Understone Keep. “You know the lowlanders will use this as a reason to invade,” he said softly.

Madanach looked at him. Beside the minister was his wife Eodwyn, her hand on their eleven-year-old son Bryn’s shoulder.

“They will come anyway.” Madanach gestured to the city below. “They don’t have the Thu’um this time around. They will break upon their stones and then we will reclaim our ancient lands.”

He had tried playing nice and yet again, the lowlanders had betrayed him. Madanach would follow the Path of Red Eagle to the end and show no mercy to the invaders.


	4. The Markarth Incident

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, torture, imprisonment, fantastic racism, child death, genocide, war crimes, mutilation and corpse desecration. This is the penultimate chapter of the story with one more as a kind of epilogue, then I will be returning to write the Markarth Incident in Heresy from Sigdrifa and Ulfric’s perspective. I know it’s a bit rushed but it’s harder to write this than I thought it would be.

The Emperor wasn’t as desperate as Gracchus said he would be.

The first thing Madanach knew about the invasion of his kingdom was a bloodied messenger from Sundered Towers bringing word that the border redoubts had fallen, every magical user from shaman to witch to Briarheart to Matriarch executed, and the Nord-dominant children shipped off in a wagon deeper into Skyrim than anyone could track. The invaders were Nord warriors wearing the blue-grey and bear of Eastmarch, commanded by a powerful wheat-blond man with the power of the Voice, a blond man in bearskins and a black-haired woman in the totemic quicksilver-ebony armour of a Shieldmaiden.

He sent messages to all the redoubts and camps of the Reach, calling in his forces to converge on Markarth. Catriona tried her best to unite the magic-users of the Reach into a coherent force, but the Hags and Matriarchs refused, citing Tarania’s prophecy as reason to try and preserve their independence. The help that came on both ends was far weaker than he’d counted on.

By the time their few reinforcements arrived, the invaders had taken Soljund’s Sinkhole, Old Hroldan and had scattered the defenders of Karthspire after Kaleen was injured by the leader’s Thu’um. That gave them a straight path to Karthwasten and Madanach reluctantly gave the order for all his warriors to retreat to Markarth, abandoning Ainethach and his people.

(Eodwyn died at Karthwasten trying to protect Bryn from being taken by the Nords. Something in her husband Gillam died the day when her head was Telekinetically thrown into the city by a Stormcloak mage).

It was a full two weeks before Madanach was besieged in Markarth. He’d done his best to get the non-combatants out to Deepwood Redoubt and the northern coast, even over the mountains to the Western Reachers, but it wasn’t enough. If Markarth fell, too many would die.

The leaders of the army approached. Madanach was unsurprised to see the Silver-Blood brothers, sons of Eldred, standing with them.

“Surrender and we will spare the civilians of Markarth!” roared the Tongue in a Voice that shook the mountains. “We come to free them from your tyranny, Madanach!”

“Tyranny, is it?” Madanach shot back. “You came into our lands and took it from us, Nord! You took our people’s culture. You took their dreams and future. Yet, when I unite the clans and bring them freedom, _I_ am the tyrant?”

“What of the Nords you killed?” demanded the blond man in bearskins.

“That was only after Hrolfdir betrayed me by having the population of Serpent’s Bluff Redoubt massacred when I tried to negotiate!” Madanach retorted. “If a Nord had done the same, wouldn’t you have responded in kind?”

The buttery smirk that crossed Thonar Silver-Blood’s face made Madanach realise he and Hrolfdir had been set up.

“What are ye doing with the children, ye bastards?” Gillam yelled hoarsely from his place beside Madanach. “Ye’ve taken my son, ye have!”

“Your children will be properly raised as true worshippers of the Aedra,” said the black-haired woman harshly. “You should be grateful they will be freed from your barbaric ways.”

“You have until sunset to open the gates,” finished the Tongue as wailing began among the mothers of the taken children. “If we have to breach the walls, there will be no mercy.”

“A Nord’s mercy is like a Khajiit’s honesty,” Madanach said bitterly. “Utterly non-existent.”

So began the siege of Markarth.

…

The gates were blasted open by the Tongue a week after the Stormcloak invaders started the siege. Catriona rallied what warriors she could as the civilians were sent out the back passages that no Silver-Blood knew existed, holding the line at the top of the stairs to Understone Keep. Madanach would not flee. The Path of Red Eagle forbade it.

She saw first-hand how devastating the trio of Nords were. The Tongue would Shout the mages off their feet and the one in bearskins would kill them while they were done. The Shieldmaiden either mopped up what little resistance remained among civilians and warriors weakened by hunger, her armoured bulk surrounded by a Lightning Cloak spell, or engaged the mages that her friends couldn’t bring low.

Catriona threw ice under their feet to slow their progress and followed up with lightning to drain the Shieldmaiden of her magicka. “Go!” she barked to the few survivors. “Protect Madanach!”

They fell back and the High Priestess of Hircine faced the trio alone.

“Hagraven filth!” snarled the Tongue. “Was it worth selling your soul to the Daedra?”

“If it means I don’t have to share Sovngarde with you three, aye and aye again,” Catriona said quietly.

Then she cast Lightning Storm. If these lot wanted to call themselves Stormcloaks, then let them die by the storm.

For a few moments she had the hope it would stop them. The Tongue and the Bear were driven to their knees, tears of pain leaking from their eyes, and even the Shieldmaiden was momentarily stalled. Catriona called ice to her hand, an Icy Spear to transfix the one she knew was the most dangerous opponent.

The Shieldmaiden was close enough now that Catriona could see her blue-green eyes and austere features.

“Who are you?” she croaked.

The Shieldmaiden’s face was cold and blank as ice-covered marble. “I am Sigdrifa Stormsword.”

Catriona knew she had to cast Icy Spear _now_ if she were to stop these three. Such a simple motion – pull her arm back then release with a throwing motion.

But Sigdrifa… Sigdrifa was the name of the daughter that had been torn from her arms. Her daughter, turned into a weapon against her own people by the zealots of Talos.

The Lightning Storm died and Catriona whimpered as the Stormsword’s shock-enchanted greatsword rose up and then fell down.

Then pain and darkness came.

She had failed at the test.


	5. The Girl in the Bowl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for depression, trauma and mentions of death, violence, fantastic racism, genocide and war crimes.

There was a new High Priestess of Hircine now.

Catriona finished making a nest in her little alcove as Gwen, the Matriarch of Glenmoril Coven, made a sympathetic noise. The Matriarchs had gathered at Hag’s End to decide her fate, as was appropriate, and when she revealed why she’d choked at that most crucial moment… It was decided that living would be punishment enough. So Catriona was exiled from the Reach instead.

The Glenmoril Coven had always stood outside the politics of the Reach, quietly tending to the sacred sites of Nocturnal and Hircine in northern Falkreath, occasionally offering advice to the rare werewolf who sought them. Catriona had trained here for a spell as a Hag. Now, she would replace Gwen’s sister Grania, who’d died last winter.

From High Priestess to exiled Hag. It was a fall reflective of the Reach’s own collapse.

Gwen eventually left to get something to eat. Hagravens, for all their power and immortality, were still creatures of flesh and blood that required sustenance. Catriona supposed she should catch a few rabbits later. She needed to eat. But her appetite and much of her motivation was gone.

She pulled a small wooden bowl from its wrap of suede and studied it thoughtfully. A slash of Nettlebane across her palm and a little water filled it halfway with a darkly glowing liquid. Catriona allowed her consciousness to expand, drifting like mist across the hills and plains and forests of Skyrim.

To the northwest was Madanach, ensconced in Cidhna Mine as a political prisoner and pet assassin for the Silver-Bloods. Catriona knew that once he got over the shock and trauma, her cousin would extend his reach once more and lull Thonar into a sense of security. Then the Forsworn would rise again.

To the northeast was a cluster of three presences. The knot of ice and stone was Sigdrifa. There was no compromising with her and after Markarth, Catriona didn’t want to. The other two presences had to be the two sons she bred from that Tongue Ulfric. Bjarni and Egil, if she recalled their names correctly. One had such a light about him, such joy and love, that it almost made her weep at the thought of the Nords crushing it to make him a true warrior of their kind. The other was already stern and stubborn, inflexible but not without compassion.

_Remember kindness. Remember compassion. Remember mercy,_ she willed those two before breaking the connection.

Finally, there was a spot to the southwest, just over the border with Skyrim. Intrigued despite her depression, Catriona trickled more power into the scrying bowl to bring up a picture.

The image showed a town that was half-dilapidated, full of Cyrods and Nords who kept their heads down as arrogant Altmer in black robes strode through the crowds. It looked as Catriona knew the Reach to be, the native populace beaten down until no vestige of pride, only the will to survive, remained. How she and Madanach had failed their people!

But it was the girl, twelve or thirteen, that dominated the scrying bowl. Close-cropped black hair, olive-bronze skin, wearing a rough tunic and skirt of grey wool that looked like some kind of uniform. Catriona watched as she picked weeds from the cobblestoned path and the dirt alleys between houses with a deft twist of the hand, tucking them carefully into a tattered sack. Not a child working at gardening, she realised, but an amateur alchemist collecting ingredients.

She paused halfway through picking the milk thistle that grew in northern County Bruma, brushing at her skin as if a fly had settled on it. So she wasn’t just an amateur alchemist, she was sensitive to sorcery too.

Just before Catriona released the spell, she caught the child’s face and held it in her memory. Even with the unfinished roundness of a half-grown lass on her, she had familiar high cheekbones, square jaw and big blue-green eyes with a stain of gold on them.

Catriona sat back in her nest, chewing her lip. There had been rumours of Sigdrifa being married to some Redguard. That lass…

She rose to her feet. Perhaps she had business in County Bruma. Perhaps there was one of her blood she could salvage.

It was the only hope she had now.


End file.
